Supermarkets have become masters of disguising the real truth about meat. By 'truth' I mean the fact that it was once a living animal. Skilled butchery and clever packaging now successfully hide the original shape of limb or organ, so that the meat we are about to put in our basket bears little resemblance to any part of a furry four-legged beast. Truth told, the more obvious a cut of meat's original function - liver, kidney, trotter or tongue - the less popular it is. Despite the fact that these are often the most toothsome cuts of all.

Even the most cunning of supermarket butchers cannot disguise an oxtail. I concede that, once hacked into neat chunks and safely imprisoned in clingfilm on a sky-blue Styrofoam tray, it is not actually still swishing the flies away, but the thing is quite obviously a tail. Cooked slowly with wine and herbs, an oxtail is a delectable cut, as one might expect from a piece of meat that is cooked on the bone and surrounded by aromatics.

I am not keen on brown beef. I like my beef pink to bloody, which is why I only ever eat it as a steak or, once in a blue moon, as a prime roast. Once its inside has lost any hint of a blush, I see no point in continuing. But the sticky, Marmite-like quality of oxtail has always appealed. Perhaps Bovril would be more appropriate. It is not just my soft spot for the culinary underdog (those cuts of meat that are regularly brushed aside in favour of the pallid and inoffensive chicken breast or escalope), it is more that I particularly like meat with an accompanying sauce that has a gelatinous quality. Something that makes me lick the corners of my mouth.

Spring always appears a good month later in the kitchen than it does in the garden, and despite the crocuses and sticky buds in my garden, it is still firmly winter and I continue to crave meats that keep out the cold. I am thinking of those gelatinous cuts cooked slowly on the bone: a neck of lamb stewed with haricot beans; a lamb shank with garlic and mushrooms; a ham hock with cabbage and juniper or, perhaps, a past-it pigeon with bacon and red wine. Bones add more than just flavour. They add richness, body, viscosity and savour to the accompanying sauce - so essential when there is a touch of frost on the ground.

Horror stories of oxtail abound. The usual one is the accusation of toughness. For once, this is almost certainly down to the cook rather than the animal or its butcher. A tail needs moist heat and a slow oven if it is to be tender. You need time to get the bones to do their stuff. Ideally, the meat should be so tender you could eat it with a spoon. Timing isn't especially crucial here. Half an hour extra in the oven may be the end the story for a decent roast rib, but will mean little or nothing to an oxtail. Surrounded by red wine or dark beer, onions, garlic, celery or celeriac, mustard, juniper, thyme and bay, it can safely be left to get on with things while we prune the roses or write that letter.

I have heard tales of gallons of fat coming from an oxtail stew, yet only this week I knocked up a large roasting tin of the tackiest, glossiest and almost black braised tail with little or no fat to skim off at all. The liquid - in this case a bottle of Rioja - had bubbled away to a thick, collagen-based syrup. This is rare, I gather, and was probably due to an especially lean tail or to my having set the oven a bit high. Usually there is a layer on the top of a braise or stew that needs removing. This is where planning comes in. A stew made the day before can not only have its cold fat lifted away with ease, but its flavour will be all the more interesting. I have no freezer, but I am reliably informed an oxtail stew is something that freezes extraordinarily well.

And there's a surprise, too. You can fiddle around with an oxtail stew, taking every possible care and attending to the smallest of details, yet the end result will be almost indistinguishable from one where you have browned the meat and vegetables, poured in the liquid - be it beer, stock, wine or even water - and chucked it forgetfully into the oven. The only trick worth knowing is that this is one dish where it is better, even in the height of winter, to remove the fat.

You can make substitutions all over the shop. For oxtail, you could read lamb shank or even neck chops. You can swap red wine for white and Guinness for any dark beer. Chuck the carrots in favour of parsnips; use turnips in lieu of celery and add tomatoes instead of mushrooms. Neither recipe here will come to grief if you leave out the garlic or get a notion to throw in a few juniper berries. The magic lies as much in the collagen tucked away in the bones as it does in the details of seasoning. That is what gives body to the juices, and coats the hunks of bone and meagre flesh with the sticky, intense gloss that is the whole point of cooking this thing from the wrong end of a bull.

Sticky oxtail with celery and orange

Serves 2, with seconds

1 oxtail, cut into joints

a little flour for dusting the oxtail

cayenne

dry mustard powder

a thick slice of butter

2 large winter carrots, peeled and roughly chopped

2 large onions, peeled and roughly chopped

2 ribs of celery, chopped

4 whole cloves of garlic, peeled

4 or 5 bay leaves

a bottle of ballsy red wine, such as a Rioja

2 long strips of orange peel

Set the oven at 180C/gas mark 5. Trim and discard any particularly large lumps of fat from the meat, then toss each joint in flour that you have seasoned with the cayenne, dry mustard powder and some ground black pepper. Melt the butter in a roasting tin over a moderate heat and seal the meat in it, turning each piece as it colours, then add the carrots, onions, celery and garlic and let it all colour a little. By this time, the butter will have all but disappeared.

Tuck in the bay leaves, pour over the wine and lower in the orange peel before bringing it to the boil. Transfer, uncovered to the oven and leave well alone for an hour, when the exposed surface of the meat will be distinctly brown. Turn the meat over and leave for about 45 minutes. What you will now have is lumps of glossy, tender meat and a few spoonfuls of sticky sauce. Serve with mashed potato or swede.

Oxtail braised with mushrooms and Guinness

A juicier affair, though just as straightforward. Serves 4

2 oxtails, jointed and trimmed of any large pieces of fat

a little flour

50g butter

5 medium-sized red onions, peeled and chopped

125g smoked pancetta or bacon, cubed or cut into strips

3 cloves of garlic, peeled and halved

1 level tbsp of brown sugar

440ml Guinness

800ml vegetable stock or water

200g open mushrooms, quartered

2 or 3 bay leaves

Set the oven at 180 C/gas mark 5. Shake the oxtail in the flour seasoned with a little salt and black pepper, then brown it in the butter in a roasting tin or casserole over a moderate to high heat. Introduce the onions and pancetta and let them colour a little before adding the garlic. Sprinkle over the brown sugar and stir as it melts, then pour over the Guinness and stock and, as it comes to the boil, drop in the quartered mushrooms. It is tempting to fry the mushrooms with the rest of the vegetables, but resist - they will only soak up all of your butter and the fat from the pancetta, and you will have to add more.

At this point, things will look unpromising, with the mushrooms floating in the beer and the meat standing proud, but don't worry: it has a long way to go yet. Drop in the bay leaves and put the dish in the oven, leaving it alone for an hour.

After an hour, turn each knob of meat over in the liquor and return it to the oven for a further 50 minutes. You could serve the braise now, but it will be better, I think, if you can bear to let it cool; you can refrigerate it overnight and scrape off the surface fat with a spoon. There is plenty of richness in the sauce - the fat is just not needed.

Whether you are reheating (do it slowly and let it simmer for at least 20 minutes) or serving it from go, you will need some accompanying starch. Half an hour or so before the meat is likely to be ready, get some potatoes or Jerusalem artichokes on to boil or steam. You want them to be quite floury and crumbly so they will soak up much of the juice. Some greens would be good here, too - kale, perhaps, or some winter cabbage.